Dr Simone Cooper’s family focus

Being a mother who has to juggle many commitments, Dr Simone Cooper aims to prioritise workplace flexibility in her new veterinary practice.

  5.5 minutes

Dr Simone Cooper did her career back-to-front, in a sense. She worked in Sydney after graduation, then worked as a locum vet in the UK for several years, completed a surgical internship then started up a practice. Eight years later she sold her practice, moved to animal rescue work, then corporate practice, and then had a child. She returned to locum work and then started the long, hard grind of finding the perfect spot for another clinic of her own.

“I had probably been looking for about five years and kept missing out on premises to buy that would be suitable to turn into a clinic,” she recalls. “The last time I missed out on something, I almost gave up. Someone jumped in at the last minute and paid cash for the site, and that was it.”

Then she came across a large building in the middle of a dusty development site. “I saw the development notice that was going up, and so I contacted the developer and asked what was happening with the other buildings that were to be built. They said, ‘These are going to take a while to come about, but would you like the building that currently stands there?’”

She thought it had potential, and fell in love with the site when she first walked inside. But there was a problem. The owner of the entire development site had problems getting clearance for the development of the rest of the block, which subsequently slowed down Dr Cooper’s DA. COVID slowed everything down even further. “We had a massive pause from July last year until January, so eight months of just hanging in the breeze,” she says. “In the meantime, anyone could come in and offer to pay more for the site, but I was at the very end of what I could do, financially. So we were just sweating on that going through and wondering if we were about to miss out again.”

Her own person

It wasn’t long after she finished her surgical internship under Dr Tony Black that Dr Cooper jumped into practice ownership for the first time, opening a veterinary practice on the NSW Central Coast. “What motivated me? I suppose you just like to be your own person,” she says. “I was looking for more of a lifestyle practice—it was just on the coast there. I really like to be part of a community. I was lucky to be very much embraced down in that area, and still have contacts with people from that practice so long ago.”

But it’s a tough gig, running your own show. Dr Cooper was confident with her technical skills and medical knowledge, but it was different to being an associate, where everyone is always happy to see you. Managing people was a skill she had to learn, and the combination of long hours and stress made the thought of going back to locum work appealing.

She moved on and soon jumped into managing a shelter in the Hunter Valley and then a corporate practice. Several years later she had a child, which involved developing a whole new set of cognitive and endurance skills. She stepped back for a while doing part time locum work to concentrate on her family but after a few years, that thirst for the challenge of running her own practice returned. Except this time, she would do things differently.

Bumpy ride

When Dr Cooper put the deposit down on the new site, the strata application was already with council. She was told it would take about a month. “Just to be sure, I asked for 90 days, though,” she says. “Because I thought, ‘Well, at least that gives me time to build as well, without having to start paying straight away and not trading’.”

But the combination of lockdowns, COVID casualties at council and their DA not being lodged by council meant nothing happened. “The process was very difficult,” she says. “But I presume the council were under pressure because there was also a lot of development going up in Newcastle at the same time.

“It really was a very difficult time to be honest. We were wondering whether we were going to miss out again, and potentially lose a deposit as well. BOQ Specialist really did stick by me the whole time. It was a bit of a rock and roll ride. I must admit, even though it was very stressful, I'd have to take my hat off, particularly to Christiane Saliba, for getting that over the line. He stopped me having a nervous breakdown.”

Practice with a difference 

The new practice was still being fitted out at the time of writing, and will be up and running by mid-year. This time around, Dr Cooper says, the practice will be different from her last one.

“I intend to use a lot of technology this time,” she says. “There is, obviously, newer computer software to run the clinic. But I’ll also adopt elements such as online booking, some telemedicine, social media, and inventory control so both vets and nurses can spend more time looking after the patients. These elements also provide a lot more flexibility for potential clients in many ways.”

She’s also aware that practices are busier than ever, so she’s keen to attract vets who want to break out of the traditional “40-to-60 hour week”. “I really want it to be a family practice in every sense of the word. I'm now living that myself with a very young child. Veterinary practice is a heavily female-dominated business now. We’re trying to aim for attracting both male and female vets who are happy to, if they want to, have four-hour or eight-hour shifts. So upstairs, we could have room for young kids if we needed to, separate from the practice, because a lot of people need that time with their families as well. It will be a very family-oriented practice for both clients and our staff.

"I’d really like to focus on mentoring the younger vets as well. That’s something I've been doing for a few years in different practices, and it is very rewarding. We’re planning to reach out to some of the universities and see if their students would like to come our way during their extramural prac work time.”

The end result will be a practice that isn’t only suited to Dr Cooper’s life now, but is far more suited to the profession as it exists. “I think it’s the way of the future,” she says. “It means people can still work and still learn. That’s one thing that has been a frustration with a lot of part-time workers these days—getting flexible hours means that they also miss out on developing some of the skills they want. And I think that's a really important thing. Having been there myself, you realise that if you're a locum or part-time, sometimes you get a little bit forgotten. But it’s nice to be able to say, ‘I only have these hours I can work, but I also want to learn this’. You need a balance.”

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